Like many of you I have had a Revell Gato or two lying around my shop for years awaiting inspiration. Through a circuitous route I find myself back working on it with some accountability partners. Porteous, Kisler, and I have decided to finally put our kits and AM parts to good use and create our own wolfpack. John Knasas' beautiful boat is our main inspiration. He's done such a good job with his, and it performs so well in the water, we figure if our results are half as good we'll be doing alright.

The pack will consist of Gato (Knasas), Harder (Porteous), Trigger (Kisler) and Flasher (me). Suitably alliterative wolfpack name to follow. Why Flasher? Well, the first "grown up" book I ever read was Grider's 'War Fish' and I've always been thrilled by his account of his first patrol as CO, her fifth. If you're unfamiliar with the story of the "flaming action patrol" by all means check it out of your local library. Flasher during her fifth war patrol had her own slightly modified look which will pose a few interesting challenges -- but not so many that it will bog me down. I've been lost in detail hell on several boats recently and this project is ostensibly about fun. Why not Wahoo you ask? Hopefully she will come some day too in a slightly larger scale.

So, Flasher circa 5WP is an Electric Boat Gato-class so the Revell kit, which really is nice, is a great starting point. What it will require is some effort to convert the fairwater to Flasher's clean covered wagon look. The first thing I did was lop off some of the details on the kit parts. First to go were the square raised panel lines along the bottom of each side. These weld lines are on the boat the kit was primarily modeled after, Cod, but are not on Flasher's fairwater -- nor very many others that I have observed. Some scraping with a #11 X-acto and I was feeling much better.

I also cut off all but one of the pressure proof lockers molded into the FW sides. Why they made the moldings part of the kit I'll never understand. During 5WP Flasher only had one large one under the forward 20mm platform starboard of the CL. The rest I shaved down or drilled out. Then I opened the large doors on the side. Now she's looking like a Gato!

To fill the new holes left by the pressure proof lockers I employed a trick learned from the pages of the SCR many moons ago. I found some suitable styrene stock of the FW wall thickness and punched out circular plugs to fill the holes. I found some brass tubing with the matching ID of the holes and cut a piece around 1" long. Then I filed one end until it was sharp enough to cleanly bite the plastic. Placing it on the stock I hit it with a hammer until it cut out some neat disc shapes. They fit the holes with minimal trimming. All it takes is some Tenax from the backside and the holes are gone requiring minimal putty.

Now if I can find my Nautilus Model's MBT flood template I can finish scribing the openings and doors I started back in 2007!

Paul,Way to go! I am excited to see what you do. If you find the flood hole template I would love to see it. I intend to build another, but with intent to model a single sub like you are doing. Thank you.Peace, Tom

If you can cut, drill, saw, hit things and swear a lot, you're well on the way to building a working model sub.

Tom, thanks! I have an image of the template somewhere I'll post. What boat are you thinking about? Personally, I have to depict a particular boat -- sometimes to how it looked on a particular day. :^)

Looking forward to this build. What type WTC are you going to cram inside? Home-made, r-cabs, etc....?I have a revell gato I am putting holes in the bottom of. Maybe the SubRon5 wolf pack could use a USS Batfish SS 310?

Haven't decided yet on the cylinder. I hear from BD that he's revamping his WTC line, including one for the Revell kit. Wish I could make SubRegatta to see them. Will definitely be talking to him about them.

Paul,My current Gato is just a free for all on things I liked, but it was mainly to just learn. As it sits right now it can fit several subs. You are SO right on picking a particular day. Going through photos and videos, the variance is amazing. Constantly changes were made - that is a good thing for the subs, but harder on us trying to capture the moment. The next Gato will be USS Finback, USS Mingo, or USS Barb - Still narrowing it down.I have several subs lined up before I go back to the Gato - Moebius Skipjack (should be out in August) - will put D&E in that, Revell Type VII (I have both versions, so one of them will get picked) would like to put a BD system in that, I am looking at a smaller sub like Aluminaut, Then back to the Gato. All this is conjecture at the moment, heck, I have a tough time planning for tomorrow.I really am looking forward to your build and learning from you.Peace,Tom

If you can cut, drill, saw, hit things and swear a lot, you're well on the way to building a working model sub.

Because they were the "hero" boats of Beach's "Run Silent, Run Deep" -- which is required reading for this thread.

And that's a pretty cool idea, Jeff!

Tom, understood about the build schedule. Once you get one under your belt successfully all sorts of possibilities open up. I'm having a great time with this already. Kisler is probably furthest along as far as requisitioning goes. He'll start a thread at some point -- maybe we should post it all here and I can change the subject header?

Don't blame Capt. Beach. The US Navy built and named so many subs that all the "good" names have been used and I would offer that the good Captain didn't want to use the names of any real boats for the obvious reasons.